Ok, so today I actually made a character to play in a WHR round. Watching my SP points tick away got me to thinking. The 5 SP cap on rounds is RIDICULOUSLY low for 2nd ed. Think about it. To gain a new basic talent would take 10 sessions (50 points). And that's hoarding your SP. No skill bumps. Raising an attribute from 3 to 4 is what? 120 points? That's 24 game sessions. There's maybe half that available now. In fact, pretty much the only thing the current standards are going to allow you to do is bump your skills a point here or there. The character you start with is the character you end with. Or am I missing something? I didn't see anything about revised SP costs in the campaign guide. Is this figure up for review?

Look, I'm all about preserving the experience and not wanting characters to outgrow the campaign too quickly, but at this rate the whole idea of advancement is pretty pointless.

Am I wrong? Clue me in.

(still looking forward to playing, but boy did I front load abilities!!!)

Well our WHR group is an outlier, since we play once a month. I wouldn't base any such decision on us. I know all the mods haven't been released yet, but right now there are only 7 available to play. That means a max of 45 possible SP for the home game, game day, small con crowd if they manage to play EVERYTHING.

I haven't looked at the big con (Gencon, origins, etc) events, but it sounds like those usually gave about what? 5 different events? So 25 possible SP. And that's for the con-goer who makes one big trip a year. What's the data on those participants?

I'm of the mind that if a person goes to a big con and plays all the available rounds, they should have enough rewards at the end to do something cool with their character. With WH, that would mean a specialization (30 sp), a talent (50 or 75) or an ability bump (from 2 to 3, 90 pts). Skills aren't a big consequence since they are limited by abilities. So splitting the difference there, it would seem 10 points per round would be a better baseline. That would mean after 5 rounds, I'd have enough points to:Buy a specialization and two new skills or raise a handful of skillsBuy a new basic talentBuy a new rite

Those last two are VERY important. Sorcerous and Fighting Traditions are entirely talent driven, so if the rewards don't let me develop those, what's the point in taking them?

And at 10 mods in a calendar year, right now it would take me a year of play just to buy ONE new rite or talent, at the expense of everything else. Even at 10 a round, that's still only two such gains. So even that is low balling it.

So I definitely think it's worth looking at. If hard core players were taking in 20+ mods a year, it might be different. Even then, looking at the math (100 sp), that's still prett tight for real character growth in this system.

This whole thing got me re-examining how much SP I'm awarding in my home game and the kind of advancement I want and expect. Not really germane to this discussion, but I felt it was worth the time to add OP figures into the mix because there are obviously a lot more OP WH players.

One of the major things we wanted to change with 2nd Ed. was that in 1st ed, many of us felt you advanced too quickly. There was also a wide variety of power levels within a particular Tier which made designing appropriate adventures fairly difficult. So, we wanted to shorten the Tiers while increasing costs. This is the main reason for the discrepancies between 1/2 ed.

I figured that. It also looks like Talents really drove advancement in 1st ed.

I'm glad that having everything laid out makes sense. Hopefully that table is useful.

For home play, this is entirely manageable. I've got some ideas for "recalibrating" the SP awards in a way that makes more sense (to me) that don't blow things up.

For OP, I think the question needs to be what the ideal rate of advancement vs available rounds. Right now, it's just far too slow. Assuming 10 rounds a years means in some cases you are saving for two years to raise a feature. That doesn't give much incentive to play vs "I have 4 hours to kill".

I'll have some thoughts up on that later this week. I just need time to get them into a coherent form.

For OP, I think the question needs to be what the ideal rate of advancement vs available rounds. Right now, it's just far too slow. Assuming 10 rounds a years means in some cases you are saving for two years to raise a feature. That doesn't give much incentive to play vs "I have 4 hours to kill".

I suppose it depends on what your perspective is.

For me, the incentive isn't to go up in ranks, but to tell and enjoy a good story.

Gaining levels and going up the power scale is a D&D-ism that I don't see as important to the WH game. Witch Hunters start off fairly competent from the get-go, so why is there a need/rush to go up in power levels?

Sure, it's nice to increase this or that, but I just don't see it as the be all/end all of the game. What exactly can't you do know that you can do at higher levels? Cast bigger/better spells or weapon maneuvers? OK,granted, but why is that important? Growing the characters personality, reputation, strengths and weaknesses are where it's at, as far as I'm concerned.

As I said, to me if the WHs are able to handle whatever threat they're facing and have an enjoyable adventure, then that's a WIN. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

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